Well May The Stars Be Mute
by zorro x
Summary: A peice, more prose than story, on what it means to be a Death Eater, and how the dark overwhelms. On love, and pain, and the cult of Voldemort.


**The Shadows and The Lost**  
or-  
**May Well The Stars Be Mute**  
  
They apparated into the clearing; it was dark. It was always dark, from beyond the visage of white masks and black hoods. The dark swallowed all shadows and all reflections, and left only the stark and unyielding truth of what these men were.   
  
They were the lost; the broken; the twisted. They were the outcasts of the world. They were the hated, the reviled, the despised. The world did not tremble when they walked but it should have done and they knew it, and the world knew it, and fully grown men quailed beneath their glares and died beneath their wands, and they were changing the world to fit the one man who had ever loved them.   
  
They were His.   
  
They apparated silently, like whispers of broken breaths. The woods were dark at night, with only the moonlight illuminating and even that hidden by the thick foliage above them. They did not care where they were; it was dark. Questions were forbidden and unneeded. They trusted Him.   
  
It was a respect that bypassed respect altogether and leapt to adoration, to love, to worship. He was their god, and they knew it. As any Aztec could tell you, to placate a loving god there would be sacrifices. And so they sacrificed, and the children screamed. The children always screamed. The woman screamed usually, too, and the men- voices hoarse and pleading, offering anything and everything. They had no morals, these shadows of human beings- they took and they took and paid back in the loving spectre of death.   
  
The clearing, the dark clearing, was lit by wands and by masks that glinted white in the dim light. They did not know each other; they did not need to know each other. It was enough to know that they loved Him, and that they would fight and kill with each other, for one man and warped purpose. It was enough. In the dark, all shadows are the same, and all edges blurred. And it was always dark.   
  
The world would never understand; could never understand. They were twisted,' they were sick,' they were sadistic.' They were His. He had marked them when no one would claim them, had held them when no one would love them, and had loved them when they lost everything. His mark, that damning skull and twisting serpent, was the searing brand of his kiss, and under it nothing was too much, too big, too bad. They were the Shadow-Hunters, the Dark-Lovers, the Death-Eaters. They were the demons that rose from the ashes of purging fires of sin.   
  
They apparated into the clearing; He was waiting. He said their names and they came and He let them, and they touched Him and He let them, and they kissed His robes and loved Him and He let them and loved them back. What do you give the child who has nothing? A Death Eater, or a mask.   
  
The screams would ring through their heads, through their dreams. They had children the age of the children they slaughtered; but in the dark there were no identities, no names, no families, no children. The pleas of the innocent were ignored because there was no innocence that could not be corrupted by the dark; it was dark. It was always so dark. When they breathed, the dark curled out of their mouths like frost, and the people quailed. It was dark.   
  
Their children were promised, to this man who had made them, this man who had touched them and loved them and promised them the world. Their children were given so that they would lead better lives, their lives sworn to the monster of a man so that the lonely gray that had followed before He took them would never take their children. They loved them, and so He loved them, and the children of the Shadows knew the ways of the Dark, but could never understand the allure of Him, of the dark.  
  
They apparated into the clearing; it was dark. He was angry; He was always angry. And He cursed them, and they screamed, and His unspoken apologies never graced the air because they didn't matter, because He had someone else and something else. They stood there and they fell there and they loved Him, but He hurt them and made them people again, and the dark was no longer dark enough to hide the cracking of porcelain masks.   
  
They apparated into the clearing; it was dark. He called them, and they came. He hated them, and they fell. He loved them, and they loved Him, and they died there at the hands of His newest love. And they loved him too, this man-cub with a scar and a power who had turned His love away. And he died there, and it was dark.   
  
In the dark, bones are bones and bodies are bodies and none of it matters, anyway. And He loved them.   
  
It was so dark.   
  
***Finis*  
  
A/N: **Well, what do you think? Any good? Not what I had intended to write in the slightest, but it sort of poured out of me without any prompting. I love it when stories do that- I go back a half hour later and read it, and think, I wrote that? What was I thinking?' I consider it a mild and pleasant form of possession.   
  
Please review- I am eagerly awaiting my first flame, but please sign it. I would love to get into a fic war- you flame me, I flame you. And sadly enough, I'm not joking.   
  
If you liked this, please go read (and review!) my other work!   
  
The Title comes from a Poem by Edger Allen Poe, _Israfel._   
The full quote goes:   
The ecstasies above  
With thy burning measures suit-  
Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,  
With the fervor of thy lute-  
Well may the stars be mute!'


End file.
